


Under the Storm

by RealUnicornFrappuchino (VinWrit)



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Background Dev/Niall, Emotionally charged sword fights, F/F, Fem! Snowbaz, I’ve tried to make this as historically accurate as I can :), Mild Angst, Pirate! AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25241230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VinWrit/pseuds/RealUnicornFrappuchino
Summary: It starts on a foul night; a dirty night full of a driving wind and a thick fog. Baz would have thought of it as typical, if only she believed in pathetic fallacy.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6
Collections: Carry_On_Summer_Exchange_2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [erimeri (blujoonie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blujoonie/gifts).



> So! Here’s what I’ve been working on for Merisalright as part of the Carry On Exchange! The prompts I was given were for a lesbian pirate au (fem! snowbaz), and a childhood soulmate au, so that’s what I’ve done here. 
> 
> This will be a long fic, and much of the later chapters are still WIP at the moment, so this fic will probably continue updating after the Exchange has finished. I hope that’s ok.

It starts on a foul night; a dirty night full of a driving wind and a thick fog. Baz would have thought of it as _typical_ , if only she believed in pathetic fallacy. 

The _Vampire_ is in port to resupply at some little tin-mining town off the Cornish coast when Fiona comes to her door. It’s odd, being in England again after two months of near-constant sunshine at sea - not that Baz had removed herself from the captain’s cabin for long enough to truly enjoy it, because there was a lot of planning involved in returning to a country that wanted to see her hang - but the rain is like grapeshot, a violent spray, pouring down and pouring down and not stopping.

Fiona’s windswept and glaring, her boots treading damp puddles into the rug, and the wind and rain lash against her silhouette from the skylight across the room, lightning framing her for a moment in blinding white. The hurricane lamp on Baz’s writing-desk flickers behind its glass shade from the force of the draught, though the ship doesn’t rock in the gale, and she beckons her aunt in with a wave. 

The door shuts with a wet and squelching thud, even this far belowdecks. The rain gets everywhere; has always gotten in, no matter how often they caulk the seams in the bulkheads and reseal the coaming with tarred oakum, and the cold, murky damp makes her bad knee hurt like the devil. 

The majority of her deckhands are on shore leave; probably beer-sodden in some distant inn or flophouse already, because darkness falls quickly in wintertime. They’re ragged enough already, having lost a hired hand in a squall as they crossed the channel. But the men need rest, and they run on a skeleton crew with the lights dimmed for these few cautious hours until sunrise, and draw the gangplank up and stow it on her orders; because if her time alongside the _Vampire’s_ previous captain had taught her anything, it’s how easy it is to take over a ship while it’s commander slept. 

“I still think we should have anchored at sea and taken a dinghy to shore in the night.” Fiona says eventually, sitting down on the end of Baz’s bunk. 

“Fiona.” Baz says, not looking up from the map spread out over her desk, where she is carefully tracing their next course with a pencil.

“You know as well as I do that this is the practical thing to do, what with how much of our stores we need to restock.” Baz says, feeling more than a little beleaguered. “I’ve paid off the harbourmaster to keep his mouth shut. If all goes according to plan, Dev will already be negotiating for supplies by morning.”

“Well, Devereux certainly has the gift of the gab, alright.” Fiona leans back, seeming completely at ease. “You know that’s not the only reason I’m here, Basilica.”

A wary grimace crawls across Fiona’s face, vanishes, and returns. Baz doesn’t have to check the looking-glass above her dresser to know that her own face mirrors it perfectly. They’re too alike, sometimes. It would be painful if it wasn’t so familiar. 

“What is it, then?”

“Someone’s looking for you at the inn - I’ve just got word. A blonde. Says you and her have history - and the messenger’s waiting if you want to send anything back.”

Baz doesn’t look up, and refuses to lose her composure; but the tip of her pencil breaks with an audible crack, scattering crumbs of graphite across the paper, and she curses and reaches for a penknife to sharpen it back to a point.

“Send word that I’ll go to her tomorrow. And tell her to make sure she’s alone. We don’t want any of us to have to dance with Jack Ketch if we can avoid it.” 

Fiona turns to leave, and there’s a knowing look on her face that speaks volumes. “Aye, captain.” 

Later, Baz tries to sleep, and the freezing wind is like a long-forgotten voice.

* * *

That night, Baz dreams of drowning. She dreams of flames, and a sun-soaked deck, and a pair of small hammocks strung up for warmth near the stove of a windowless cabin, and she slowly turns to ice, flooded with memories. Perhaps she doesn’t remember it in the morning, but the chill in her bones settles in, deep like an ache. 

She’s cold, because the water’s always cold. 

These seas hunger. They snap and slaver at her heels for something that was once theirs, and the _Vampire_ matches them with equal fervour, plunging onward through the surf in a spray of salt like a greyhound chasing the wind under her command. For nearly ten years now, the waves have crashed around them, mouthless and starving-seeking; searching for a body, a limb or a piece of loose clothing to snatch at and swallow and drag beneath the surface.

Now that she has the captaincy, Baz doesn’t go up on deck much. Her duties keep her belowdecks for the most part, and she can’t help but be grateful. Fiona says the lack of sun will give her scurvy, but her aunt doesn't know what she knows of the ocean. Fiona can tell some of it - but the worst part of it stays hidden, locked like a secret behind her heart.

Her mother is buried somewhere down there, beneath the choppy glass-grey surface; and, someday soon, Baz knows that she’ll join her.

* * *

****

It’s still raining come morning, and Baz pulls on her sturdiest pair of boots and an oilcloth overcoat thick enough to protect her from the storm before she leaves her cabin, tying her hair back in a neat chignon as she goes. She doesn’t think about the cold, or how the ache in her leg grows sharper with every step. 

Before sunrise, the remaining crew had rigged an old sail over the deck to protect it, and them, from the worst of the downpour, but a grey, foggy mist hangs over the harbour like a mourning-veil, and Baz can’t help but feel that it’s at least a little thematically appropriate. 

She waits for Dev to go past on the narrow gangplank, and is relieved to see him carefully overseeing the loading of their new supplies, because for all his frivolities, her cousin really was a damn fine quartermaster when he put his mind to the job. 

Niall Kelly is on guard, and she trusts him to protect the ship well, and for good reason - the hilt of his flintlock is just visible from where it is tucked beneath his belt, and he gives her a small smile. He’d been with the _Vampire’s_ crew even before she’d been elected for the captaincy, and had fought through a mutiny before that; and his sharp eye and steady hand had earned him a helmsmanship. 

His loyalty is unshakeable. 

“Customs aren’t savvy that we’re here yet, captain.” He says as she passes. “Keep your head down, and go safely.”

Baz nods. “Stay out of sight. And if anything happens - don’t wait for me.”

“Right, captain.” He says. 

She knows that he’s lying through his teeth; but trusts him enough to get the crew out first. Both he and Dev are good men, the two of them. There’s a knife in her own belt, just in case, anyway. 

It’s a short walk. There’s a wide street leading up to the town and its inn, and she can see the shadow of a church at the top of the hill. The cobbles gleam, damp like the backs of porpoises, and she makes her way towards the centre of the settlement and tries not to think of how many eyes may be watching her. 

There’s a fork in the street up ahead - one leads towards the main street, the other towards a series of twisting, dark alleyways, and, there; the inn. It’s called the Wig and Quill, and there’s a judge’s gavel painted on the swinging sign over the door. The paint is smudged, dark and soot-stained, and greasy yellow light spills out onto the damp street from each tiny window. The wind makes things creak, and she has to fight the urge not to flinch when hurried footsteps pass her by. 

Baz puts her hand on the cracked and salt-worn wood of the door, tracing the whorls and knots in the grain, but doesn’t dare push it open, not yet. Her mind screams at her - here, she’s a target, and the bounty on her head is large enough to warrant attention from the truly desperate. 

This has happened before. Baz refuses to think of that time with anything except a kind of wrath that makes her head spin. She refuses to think of cracked glass and sand crunching beneath her heels, or illegal rum in dainty glasses. She does not think of flowers and night air and a letter left tucked beneath a pillow. She definitely doesn’t think of broken promises.

“Well.” Baz tells herself. “Best to get it over with sooner.”

The door opens easily, hanging on well-oiled hinges, and bleak winter dawn-light breaks into the dim comfort of the alehouse. There are few patrons this early - the air outside is hostile, and even the comfort of a hot meal and a warm hearth isn’t worth braving it. 

And then, as the door opens fully, Baz sees her at last. They have been here before, the two of them; years ago, at a different bar at a different port. 

She’s a little older now than she was then; more worn, the lines around her eyes a little harsher, still sun-beaten and undoubtedly still just as quick to strike as when they’d used to fence with broom-handles on the deck of their old ship. She sits at the bar now, half-sunk in a glass of cider, with a plate of bread and cheese at her elbow, and her head jerks up as Baz finally draws herself fully into the room, eyes alight in surprised recognition.

Snow had always beaten her then, and here, even as slumped and careworn as she seems now, her movements heavy and her curls dull and bedraggled in the gloom, with tired eyes like chips of shattered sky, Baz still has no doubt about who would win if it came to blows.

Simon - she’d gone by Simon then, and is set enough in her ways that Baz doubts that anything could have changed, not in two years - looks up. She’s still dressed in faded naval blue, because old habits died hard, and Snow was hardly one to help kill them; with a petticoat two inches longer than the tattered hem of her skirt. She blinks, blearily. 

Baz sighs, and draws up a seat, and - 

“Charlie’s dead.” She says. It’s as if nothing has ever happened at all to separate them, and Snow’s head snaps up all of a sudden, and she looks Baz up and down almost in wonder, and takes another drink from her mug.

A laugh leaves Simon’s lips. Short, cut off too soon, high in its fake gaiety and therefore unexpectedly self-deprecating. “I didn’t think you would come at all.” She admits. 

All of a sudden, acid rises in Baz’s throat. “Of course I would.” She spits, the words falling from her lips with an unbidden venom, like mercury, and she stumbles over them. “It would be impolite not to.”

“Well, you’re not exactly known for politeness, are you?”

And that hurts. That Simon has been keeping an eye out, watching as her reputation is muddied by the admiralty and the people she once served, and that Simon believes them. 

They know one another. That’s the worst of it. Baz knows where the wounds lie - knows that Simon’s father is the current captain of a privateer ship much older than either of them, _Baz’s mother’s ship_ , and that the blonde had snuck on board at eleven when she could no longer stay ashore and be indifferent to her father’s life of adventure. They had grown up together between the decks. Baz knows Snow’s friendship - and being the girl’s enemy is so much worse.

“Snow.” Baz snaps, cutting that thought off at the root before it can form and spiral out of control. “What do you want?”

At that, Simon looks up, and glances at the door. It’s an expression Baz had seen before, as if Snow is considering running, and - 

“Ah.” Baz says, her lips pursed, annoyed, shutting herself off. “Can’t be seen speaking to the likes of me? Understandable.”

“It’s not that - Baz -” Simon sputters, her ears going red at the tips as a bright flush paints itself across her face. 

“Why the hell did you ask me to come, Snow? To fight? To argue - to settle things once and for all?”

“Of course not, I -”

“Or is this a trick? An ambush?”

And then - 

“I had nowhere else to go for help!” Simon bursts out, and claps a hand over her own mouth as if to stifle the sound, wide-eyed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. There’s some flashbacks in this one, and we find out some more about Si and Baz’s history. Slight angst. 
> 
> Also, the Mage is a total arsehole, even in alternate universes. Just warning you about that now.

“And why should I help you, Simon?” 

It’s a genuine question. The Watford - where Simon is first mate, if Baz’s memory serves her correctly - is a privateer ship commissioned to hunt the likes of her. Agreeing could mean being dragged back to the Admiralty in chains, to eventually face the rope. And part of Baz wants to say more, to cry out _you let me leave_ , and the words form and then dissolve again on her tongue.

Before her own memory begins, Baz knows how Natasha Pitch had been Captain of the Watford, and she had grown up in a cabin on board with her mother. She remembers running, and blood, and a battle at sea. Simon’s hot hand clutched in hers, eleven and shaking, as they took shelter behind the wheelhouse and watched the gunsmoke bloom across the deck. The Vampire had attacked them, and Baz had heard a splash, and then- 

A product of friendly fire and an accidental but not unexpected tragedy, the Admiralty had ruled her Mother’s death, but Baz had seen the blade of another run her through, though she couldn’t tell who; and the higher-ups never really concerned themselves with the likes of freebooters. Natasha Pitch had been a progressive and a troublemaker, and the government and the crown had washed their hands of her.

And Simon Snow, ever her father’s right hand, had watched Baz leave, after the trial and the inquest. Simon had let her go, and Baz doesn’t know whether to blame her for it. Simon’s looking at her now, all dull-golden and rumpled and hopeful, and Baz is thrown straight back to the last time they did this. 

“Because I don’t know-“ 

“Snow.” Baz says, and cuts her off. “You don’t know a lot of things. Tell me why I should agree to help you, especially after what happened at Grenada.”

* * *

And that’s the problem, Baz thinks. Grenada. Two years past, now, and still stuck in her head like a familiar tune. 

There had been an early-morning altercation between the crew of the Vampire and another two-bit crew, both seeking to emancipate a shipment of liquor from a schooner in port, and those on watch at the Watford were sent scurrying after the criminals on either side and into the dark and serpentine alleys of St. George’s. 

Simon shouldn’t’ve been there, had said her newly-minted title, searing across Baz’s brain. The ranking officer should have been delegating, should have sent others in her place. 

But how could Simon send another man to his death? Snow was insufferably noble. She always had been. 

_You need to be harder on the men; they see the weakness in you and it will be your downfall_ , Baz had thought, then, and knew that Snow probably thought the same of herself. 

The footsteps behind her had stopped running, and Baz had turned on her heel and rounded on her pursuer, blade raised, and then-

“Baz?”

“Snow?”

Simon hadn’t lowered her sword, and it pricks at Baz’s pride when she remembers how her resolve had wavered immediately, sure in her convictions of Simon’s own personal loyalties. 

She feels stupider for it now. Even with her lieutenant’s bars, was Snow such a significant threat that Baz could not have- ?

In all honesty, Baz still isn’t sure what she should have done, no matter how her captain had berated her for her inaction afterwards. Instead, Baz had greeted her with joviality.

“Come off it, Snow.” She had said. “I’ve not seen you in how many years, and you want t’ spend it fighting? Really?” Her hand, curled around the neck of a rum-bottle, had raised it to her lips, and she’d drank deeply, and handed the bottle to Snow when she was through. Simon's eyes had darted to the shining rim, the gentle slosh of alcohol inside the dark glass. She’d been tempted. 

But then, Baz remembers, she’d remembered why she’d been there, why the Navy had ordered that the Watford pursue her own band. The realisation had been stark on her face, because, _Crowley_ , Snow never could hide her feelings. “Your crew is-“ How else could she have broached the subject? “They’re criminals, Baz.” And she had got the words out as if they had tasted bitter, the condemnation a kind of feeble defence, although it sounds pathetic even to Baz’s own memory now. 

Her own soft smile - pathetic, somehow more open than it ever was when they were girls; had been unchanged. Her arm had still been offering the bottle, and after another moment of hesitation, Simon had snatched it with her free hand, and Baz’s sabre had clattered to the cobblestones; and Simon had took a slug of drink. 

The way she’d done it tells that It hadn’t quite burned like it used to when they were young, when a mere whiff of spirits would make the two of them hack and cough.

And then, the Simon that Baz remembers puts the bottle aside, drops it like it means nothing, watching the contents splatter the ground. It drains away, running like some small parody of a river into the gutter, glass shards glossy and dark as treacle in the not-quite-light.

And Baz’s smile had faltered at the unexpected violence, and Simon had taken a half-step back, her back hitting the wall, fingers curling into the thin cotton of Baz’s sleeve, pulling her with her - her shirt had been old and slightly frayed but freshly-washed, still almost impeccable, still looking better than Simon ever could-- and looked at her.  
  


And Simon had smiled, then, and there had been a blade at her neck all of a sudden - Baz had felt the sting in the soft flesh beneath her chin where the point had dug in, and remembers it now. 

_Promise_ , Simon had said, and Baz had promised. 

* * *

“I’m well aware of what happened at St. George’s, Baz-“ 

“Then you’ll know why I’m unwilling to help you, after you made me promise - at swordpoint, mind you - to keep my distance from you and your damned ship.”

Simon growls, and Baz wonders if she even realises that she’s doing it. That odd hope has fled, replaced by acid, and she near staggers back under the weight of spite in the other’s gaze. “But you owe me!” She argues, her hand going for the hilt of a blade at her hip, but it’s not there, and Baz is glad. Snow is deadly with a sword - out of the two of them, Simon has bested her more times than she could count. 

“What for?” She snaps back. “Last I knew, you were still your father’s good little lieutenant!”

“Baz-“ Simon splutters, but Baz - 

“I’ve heard how you get by, under his command,” she says, strained, walking some unexpected line of rigging that she can see is rapidly fraying beneath her feet. It would be so easy to fall off here, to lose her balance and throw it all away, and she can’t see why she still clings on so desperately, but she hangs on anyway. “and I want no part in it.”

“I was going to say that I regretted St. George’s!” Simon says then, and she slumps. “And I refuse to call _that man_ my father, Baz. Not now.”

Simon shoves at the air between them; air thick with discomfort now, heavy like lead; and Baz opens her mouth, and closes it again. There’s nothing more to say. She feels like a stopped bottle of champagne that’s been shaken and rolled on stormy waves. Another thread of the tightrope snaps.

“Go on. You better get moving.”

And Snow backs away, for the first time in her life, and Baz stalls. Her resolve weakening, but incapable of piecing together the phrases which will mend the old rift and make it right.

And then - 

“Wait. Snow. I’ll help.”

**Author's Note:**

> GLOSSARY OF PIRATE-Y TERMS:
> 
> Bulkheads - the inner walls of a ship
> 
> Oakum - tarred rope fibres, commonly hemp, used to seal gaps in the planking of a ship. 
> 
> Coaming - a raised lip around any hatches in a ship’s deck, to stop water from going belowdecks. 
> 
> Jack Ketch - pirate slang referring to the hangman. Being hanged was known as “dancing with Jack Ketch.”
> 
> Charlie’s Dead - a phrase used between women in the 17th-18th century, used to tell another that her petticoat was showing. Often attributed to the fact that the executed King Charles I had been known as a womaniser, or that after his execution, ladies of the court had dipped their skirts in his blood.


End file.
